


Bluebonnets

by goddessofcruelty



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Human Cora, Mermaid Lydia, Merpeople, Rare Pairings, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 00:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3337895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcruelty/pseuds/goddessofcruelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cora closes her eyes as she sings to the great blue expanse, remembers her mother bringing her to this very beach, singing on the car ride there, spreading out a blanket and eating homemade sandwiches, building a bonfire and roasting marshmallows, memory after memory of their time together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bluebonnets

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Loosely based on [this giftset](http://puppyfacedbrokenboys.tumblr.com/post/109619833811/cordia-little-mermaid-au).
> 
> Note: Title and Lyrics come from [Bluebonnets (Julia's Song) by Aaron Watson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLwMpA2aO-c)

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Cora sits down in the sand and shucks her sneakers, peels off her socks, and rolls up her pant legs. Then she walks down the beach, letting the mud squish in between her toes, until she's at the edge of the waves. She looks down to watch the tide rolling in a moment and then looks up.

“I've got a new one for you, mom.”

Cora takes a breath, diaphragm firm like her vocal coach taught her and sings to the wild sea, the blue-gray expanse that she thinks of as her mother's grave. Talia's body was recovered and buried in the family plot of the town cemetery, but here is where Cora feels closest to her mother, here is where Talia's spirit yet lingers.

Cora closes her eyes as she sings to the great blue expanse, remembers her mother bringing her to this very beach, singing on the car ride there, spreading out a blanket and eating homemade sandwiches, building a bonfire and roasting marshmallows, memory after memory of their time together.

Tears roll down her cheeks, as salty as the sea into which they drop, mingling with those of countless others who've lost a loved on to its caprice.

  


_So pack light and love heavy  
Give it all your heart and soul  
So in the end you won't regret one thing  
Life is like bluebonnets in the spring_

  


The last notes of her song echo out over the rushing water, and Cora lowers her head, then blows a kiss out over the ocean before she turns on her heel and heads back to her car.

Two soft brown eyes watch her from around the side of one of the rocks in the harbour.

-

“Lyyyydiaaaa...” She hears her sister calling and flicks her tailfin, swirling and twisting around the shallows, going deeper and closer than she's ever gone before to the Abovelands to get away from the nagging brat. She hates singing, hates singing practice, and especially hates performing like some sort of trained seahorse for the Court. She's absolutely done with all of it as of right now.

With another flip and twist, Lydia is in the very shallowest part of the sea, right where it kisses the land, and she becomes very still, listens for anything that might discovers her, before she pushes her face Above, breaking the plane of water ever so slightly.

Her long red locks stream out behind her as she becomes braver, pushes up further, until at last, she can look around. Just as she's about to dive out into open water, she hears a sound and ducks back into concealment. And then she hears it, hears someone singing. And it's gorgeous.

Lydia has to see the producer of these tones, and so she creeps around until she can spy on the girl. The voice is throbbing with sadness as it carries over the water, and Lydia finds herself drawing closer and closer. The human girl's face glitters with tears when she finally completes her song, and Lydia is astonished to find that she's crying as well. She watches the girl walk away with exploding curiosity, and she lingers until it's clear that the girl is not coming back to the seaside today.

Lydia is quiet and thoughtful as she returns to her home, brushing of concern and recriminations and secluding herself to think about the girl and that incredible voice. She returns the next morning and waits all day, but the girl doesn't come.

Lydia visits the beach for three weeks straight before she sees the girl again, and she's almost given up hope. But the girl doesn't sing this time, she just stares into the ocean a long, long time, and then starts walking into it.

Lydia creeps closer curiously, but the girls just keeps walking, until the waves are lapping it her chin, and then she closes her eyes and sinks below the surface.

Lydia's eyes go wide and she dives down, disobeying every precept about contact with humans, because she's well aware that they can't survive beneath the sea, and she must hear that voice again. She swims faster than she's ever swum in her life, and wraps her arms around the dark-haired girls midsection, tugging her up above the waves where she gasps and splutters, indignantly rounding on Lydia, and then her eyes go very, very wide and her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

-

Cora is tired, she's just so _tired_. Tired of Uncle Peter always being gone, tired of Laura's fierce determination to pretend everything's alright, tired of Derek's complete withdrawal, just everything. She's tried to cope, tried to be okay, but she just can't do it anymore.

So Cora decides to join her mother.

It's all too easy once she makes the decision, takes some time to leave a note for her family, and takes herself down to the beach just like she always has. She's just going to walk in and lets the sea that took her mother, swallow her down.

She doesn't feel a thing as she stands there on the precipice of going under, just takes that last step forward numbly and lets herself fall.

So she's very surprised to find herself yanked back above water before she'd even breathed in any water, surprised and enraged. She turns her ire on her rescuers, all the How Dare Yous swirling in her mind. And then before she can explode with vitriol, her mind kicks in and tell her what she's seeing.

Cora thinks maybe she's drowned after all. Because she's pretty sure that's a mermaid.

Tail, check. Gills on her side, check. No bikini on top, however, this one's as bare as the day she was born – or hatched – or whatever.

Cora reaches out gingerly and pokes the apparent mermaid in the nose.

-

Lydia watches the girl's mouth open and close twice, and she's in the midst of a mild panic about her voice not working, when she lifts her hand and prods Lydia right in the face with a finger. Some scent that lingers upon her skin tickles Lydia's nose, and she sneezes in reaction.

Which prompts the girl into a fit of surprised giggles, and Lydia crosses her arms.

“Rude.”

The girl's eyes go wide again. “You can talk!”

Lydia arches a brow. “Of course I can.”

“What's your name?” she asks.

“Lydia,” replies the mermaid. “I heard you sing. Will you sing for me?”

“My name's Cora,” she murmurs, “And I only sing for my mother.”

“And me.” Lydia insists, poking her right back in the nose.

-

Cora looks down at the delicate finger, tipped in a claw rather than a fingernail, and wrinkles up her nose.

“Song for me, Cora,” the mermaid demands, and the girl can't help but oblige her.

So Cora sings, sings for someone other than the dead for the fist time in oh so very long. Lydia is still and rapt, immersed in the song that she sings, and the beams with glee when it's over.

“Another,” she says. “Sing again, Cora.”

Cora sings until her throat is hoarse, and the sun is fading behind the horizon.

“I gotta go home now,” she says softly.

“You'll come back and sing for me tomorrow,” Lydia states, and then with a flick of her sliver tail, she dives down beneath the waves and away.

Cora trudges back to her car slowly, marveling over her encounter and thinking she just might do that.

-

Lydia is waiting for her the next morning, and she's a rapt audience again as Cora sings for her, and then asks about the songs of her people.

"I don't like singing," Lydia confesses, "I like listening."

Cora smiles softly and sings for her some more, until it's well into the night, and she's shivering in the spray.  Before she can protest, Lydia's wrapped around her, surprisingly warm for a...fish-like...creature.

Cora turns to say thank you, and finds her face only a few inches from the mermaid's.

Lydia glances down at Cora's lips, and then back up to her eyes. "I'm going to kiss you now," she announces, and then suits word to deed and presses her mouth to Cora's, hot and hungry, and Cora's never been so thoroughly kissed in her life.  She clings to Lydia, now for reasons other than warmth. and the mermaid smirks, smug in her prowess.

"Tomorrow you sing, and I will give you more kisses," she decides, and then shooes Cora off home.

-

Cora eventually uses her portion of the life insurance money to buy that portion of the beach, and builds a house with a waterway beneath, so that Lydia can swim right up into the house. 

She spends the rest of her life singing for kisses, and curling in the arms of her mermaid.


End file.
